TNW Sites

Yes (!), it’s happened again…there’s been another suspected Web service hacking after graphics technology giant Nvidia temporarily shuttered its developer forum following concerns that details of its users’ passwords had been grabbed by a third party.

NVIDIA suspended operations today of the NVIDIA Developer Zone (developer.nvidia.com). We did this in response to attacks on the site by unauthorized third parties who may have gained access to hashed passwords.

We are investigating this matter and working around the clock to ensure that secure operations can be restored.

Nvidia hasn’t revealed the number of passwords that ‘may’ have been compromised although — unlike Yahoo Voices and Billabong — it says that its user information is hashed, although further details of exactly how it secures the data are as yet unknown.

The company says it is working to restore full access to the Developer Zone but, in the meantime, five of the forum’s most popular pages remain open to help developers that use the site to garner information. It isn’t clear, however, if moderators will actively respond to enquiries within the threads.

No one has claimed the latest attack, but it comes at a time when a number of Web services have had their data storage vulnerabilities exposed by hackers.

If confirmed, the incident will make Nvidia’s forum the fourth significant site to have had password information swiped by a third party this week, following Billabong, Yahoo Voices and Formspring. Android-focused blog Phandroid also saw its 1 million-strong user forum suffer a breach this week, as ZDNet reports.

We’ve reached out to Nvidia for more details.

UPDATE: Nvidia has sent us the following information:

“We believe this was a breach by third parties seeking sensitive information. They appear to have gained access to hashed passwords. We don’t yet have a specific timetable for when the site will be back up but are working around the clock to restore it. DevZone has about 100,000 registered users.”